Ethan Hawke
Hawke at the 2009 Venice International Film Festival
Born	Ethan Green Hawke (1970-11-06) November 6, 1970 (age 41) Austin, Texas, United States
Occupation	Actor, director, screenwriter and novelist
Years active	1984–present
Spouse	Uma Thurman (1998–2004) Ryan Hawke (2008–present)

Ethan Green Hawke (born November 6, 1970) is an American actor, writer and director. He made his feature film debut in 1985 with the science fiction movie Explorers, before making a supporting appearance in the 1989 drama Dead Poets Society which is considered his breakthrough role. He then appeared in such films as White Fang (1991), A Midnight Clear (1992), and Alive (1993) before taking a role in the 1994 Generation X drama Reality Bites, for which he gained critical acclaim. In 1995, he starred in the romantic drama Before Sunrise, and later in the 2004 sequel Before Sunset.

In 2001, Hawke was cast as a rookie police officer in Training Day, for which he received a Screen Actors Guild and Academy Award nomination in the Best Supporting Actor category. Other films have included the science fiction feature Gattaca (1997), the title role in Michael Almereyda's Hamlet (2000), the action thriller Assault on Precinct 13 (2005), and the crime drama Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007).

Hawke has appeared in many theater productions including The Seagull, Henry IV, Hurlyburly, The Cherry Orchard, The Winter's Tale and The Coast of Utopia, for which he earned a Tony Award nomination. He made his directorial debut with the 2002 independent feature Chelsea Walls. In November 2007 Hawke directed his first play, Jonathan Marc Sherman's Things We Want. Aside from acting, he has written two novels, The Hottest State (1996) and Ash Wednesday (2002). Between 1998 and 2004, Hawke was married to actress Uma Thurman.

Early life[link]

Hawke was born in Austin, Texas, to Leslie (née Green), a charity worker, and James Hawke, an insurance actuary.^[1][2] His maternal grandfather, Howard Lemuel Green, served five terms in the Texas Legislature and was a minor-league baseball commissioner.^[3][4] Hawke's parents were students at the University of Texas at the time of his birth, and separated in 1974.^[1][5]

After the separation, Hawke was raised by his mother. The two relocated several times before settling in New York, where Hawke attended the Packer Collegiate Institute in Brooklyn Heights.^[3] Hawke's mother remarried when he was 10 and the family moved to West Windsor Township, New Jersey,^[6] where Hawke attended West Windsor-Plainsboro High School South.^[3][5] He later transferred to the Hun School of Princeton, a secondary boarding school,^[7] from which he graduated in 1988.^[8]

In high school, Hawke aspired to be a writer, but developed an interest in acting. He made his stage debut at age 13, in a school production of George Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan,^[3][9] and appearances in West Windsor-Plainsboro High School productions of Meet Me in St. Louis and You Can't Take It with You followed.^[10] At Hun School he took acting classes at the McCarter Theatre on the Princeton campus,^[10] and after high school graduation he studied acting at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, eventually dropping out after he was cast in Dead Poets Society (1989).^[11] He twice enrolled in New York University's English program, but dropped out both times to pursue acting roles.^[9]

Career[link]

Early work[link]

Hawke obtained his mother's permission to attend his first casting call at age 14.^[12] He secured his first film role in 1985's Explorers, in which he played alongside River Phoenix as an alien-obsessed schoolboy who builds a spacecraft with his friends.^[13] The film received favorable reviews^[14] but made poor box office revenues,^[15] a failure which Hawke has admitted caused him to quit acting for a brief period after the film's release. Hawke later described the disappointment as difficult to bear at such a young age, adding "I would never recommend that a kid act."^[11] His next film appearance was not until 1989's comedy drama Dad, where he played Ted Danson's son and Jack Lemmon's grandson.^[11]

In 1989, Hawke made his breakthrough appearance, playing shy student Todd Anderson opposite Robin Williams's inspirational English teacher in Dead Poets Society.^[5] The film was critically well-received;^[16] the Variety reviewer wrote "Hawke ... gives a haunting performance."^[17] With revenue of $235 million worldwide, the film remains Hawke's most commercially successful picture to date.^[18] Hawke later described the opportunities he was offered as a result of the film's success as critical to his decision to continue acting: "I didn't want to be an actor and I went back to college. But then the [film's] success was so monumental that I was getting offers to be in such interesting movies and be in such interesting places, and it seemed silly to pursue anything else."^[12]

Hawke's next film, 1991's White Fang, brought his first leading role. The film, an adaptation of Jack London's novel of the same name, featured Hawke as Jack Conroy, a Yukon gold hunter who befriends a wolfdog.^[19] According to The Oregonian, "Hawke does a good job as young Jack, being both physically robust but still boyishly naive. He makes Jack's passion for White Fang real and keeps it from being ridiculous or overly sentimental."^[20] Hawke then appeared in A Midnight Clear (1992), a well-received war film by Keith Gordon,^[21] and 1993's Alive, an adaptation of Piers Paul Read's 1974 book, Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors.^[22]

Critical success[link]

Hawke's next part, in the Generation X drama Reality Bites (1994) as Troy, a slacker who mocks the ambitions of his love interest (played by Winona Ryder),^[12][23] received critical acclaim. Film critic Roger Ebert called Hawke's performance convincing and noteworthy: "Hawke captures all the right notes as the boorish Troy."^[24] The New York Times noted, "Mr. Hawke's subtle and strong performance makes it clear that Troy feels things too deeply to risk failure and admit he's feeling anything at all."^[25] Nonetheless, the film was a surprise box office disappointment.^[23]

The following year Hawke again received critical praise, this time for his performance in Richard Linklater's 1995 drama Before Sunrise. The film follows a young American (Hawke) and a young French woman (Julie Delpy), who meet on a train and disembark in Vienna, spending the night exploring the city and getting to know one another.^[26] The San Francisco Chronicle praised Hawke and Delpy's performances: "[they] interact so gently and simply that you feel certain that they helped write the dialogue. Each of them seems to have something personal at stake in their performances."^[27]

Away from acting, Hawke directed the music video for the 1994 song "Stay (I Missed You)" by singer-songwriter Lisa Loeb.^[28] He also published his first novel in 1996, The Hottest State, about a love affair between a young actor and a singer. Hawke said of the novel, "Writing the book had to do with dropping out of college, and with being an actor. I didn't want my whole life to go by and not do anything but recite lines. I wanted to try making something else. It was definitely the scariest thing I ever did. And it was just one of the best things I ever did."^[12] The book met with a mixed reception. Entertainment Weekly said that Hawke "opens himself to rough literary scrutiny in The Hottest State. If Hawke is serious ... he'd do well to work awhile in less exposed venues, perhaps focusing on shorter stories and submitting them to little magazines."^[29] The New York Times thought Hawke did "a fine job of showing what it's like to be young and full of confusion", concluding that The Hottest State was ultimately "a sweet love story".^[30]

In Andrew Niccol's science fiction film Gattaca (1997), "one of the more interesting scripts" Hawke said he had read in "a number of years",^[31] Hawke played the role of a man who infiltrates a society of genetically perfect humans by assuming another man's identity in order to realize his dream of space travel. Although Gattaca was not a success at the box office^[18] it drew generally favorable reviews from critics,^[32] and Hawke's performance was critically well-received. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reviewer wrote that "Hawke, building on the sympathetic-but-edgy presence that has served him well since his kid-actor days, is most impressive".^[33] 1998 saw Hawke appearing in Great Expectations, a contemporary film adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel,^[34] and collaborating for a second time with director Richard Linklater in The Newton Boys, based on the true story of the Newton Gang, a family of bank robbers from Uvalde, Texas.^[35]

In 1999 Hawke starred in Snow Falling on Cedars, in which he played a reporter named Ishmael Chambers, who, after being wounded in World War II, comes home to take over his family newspaper after his father's death.^[36] The film, based on David Guterson's novel of the same title, received ambivalent reviews and Entertainment Weekly concluded, "Hawke scrunches himself into such a dark knot that we have no idea who Ishmael is or why he acts as he does."^[37] He also appeared that year in Frank Whaley's directorial debut Joe the King (1999).

Hawke's next film role was in Michael Almereyda's 2000 film Hamlet, in which he played the title character. The film transposed the famous William Shakespeare play to contemporary New York City,^[38] a technique Hawke felt made the play more "accessible and vital".^[39] Salon reviewer wrote: "Hawke certainly isn't the greatest Hamlet of living memory ... but his performance reinforces Hamlet's place as Shakespeare's greatest character. And in that sense, he more than holds his own in the long line of actors who've played the part."^[40] In 2001, Hawke appeared in two more Linklater movies: Waking Life and Tape, both critically acclaimed.^[41][42] In the animated Waking Life, he shared a single scene with former co-star Julie Delpy continuing conversations begun in Before Sunrise.^[43] The real-time drama Tape, based on a play from Stephen Belber, took place entirely in a single motel room with three characters played by Hawke, Robert Sean Leonard and Uma Thurman.^[44] Hawke regarded Tape as his "first adult performance",^[45] a performance noted by Roger Ebert for its "physical and verbal acting mastery".^[46]

[edit] Training Day and after

Hawke's next role, and one for which he received substantial critical acclaim, came in Training Day (2001). Hawke played rookie cop Jake Hoyt, alongside Denzel Washington, as one of a pair of narcotics detectives from the Los Angeles Police Department spending 24 hours in the gang neighborhoods of South Los Angeles. The film was a box office hit, taking $104 million worldwide, and garnered generally favorable reviews.^[18][47] Variety wrote that Hawke's part "shows signs of coming to new life as a screen actor after somnolent turns in the likes of Snow Falling on Cedars. Hawke adds feisty and cunning flourishes to his part that allow him to respectably hold his own under formidable circumstances."^[48] Paul Clinton of CNN reported that Hawke's performance was "totally believable as a doe-eyed rookie going toe-to-toe with a legend [Washington]".^[49] Hawke himself described Training Day as his "best experience in Hollywood".^[12] His performance earned him Screen Actors Guild and Academy Award nominations for Best Supporting Actor.^[50][51]

Hawke at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival

Hawke pursued a number of projects away from acting throughout the early 2000s. He made his directorial feature debut with Chelsea Walls (2002), an independent drama about five struggling artists living in the famed Chelsea Hotel in New York City.^[52] Upon its release, the feature received mixed reviews; The Los Angeles Times wrote that Hawke's directorial debut "has brought Nicolette Burdette's play to the screen with fluid grace and a perfect blend of dreaminess and grit",^[53] while The Boston Globe stated that his direction is not apparent in Chelsea Walls.^[54] The film was critically and financially unsuccessful.^[55] A second novel, 2002's Ash Wednesday, was better received and made the New York Times Best Seller list for hardcover fiction.^[56] The tale of an AWOL soldier and his pregnant girlfriend, between whose perspectives the narrative alternates,^[12] the novel attracted critical praise: The Guardian called it "sharply and poignantly written ... makes for an intense one-sitting read".^[57] The New York Times noted that in the book Hawke displayed "a novelist's innate gifts ... a sharp eye, a fluid storytelling voice and the imagination to create complicated individuals", but was "weaker at narrative tricks that can be taught".^[58] In 2003 Hawke made a television appearance, guest starring in the second season of the television series Alias, where he portrayed a mysterious Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agent.^[59][60]